Iran dares the world: Flexes nuke muscles on TV

Manoj Sharma, the driver of the Israeli Embassy car who was injured in the bomb attack on the vehicle said he would continue to work with the mission. Sharma, who was injured in Monday's incident in which three others including a diplomat was wounded, said he is recovering from the shock and that he would be perfectly fine within the next couple of days.

"Definitely, 100 per cent," he said when asked whether he would go back and continue his job with the Israeli Embassy. "No, we are brave people. But there's been nothing like this," he said when asked whether he was scared after the incident.

The state government recently ordered that Kolkata be painted blue. This is not the introduction to a joke. From footpaths and flyovers to dilapidated public parks and pavements, the city will sport a new look in an attempt to exhibit a "uniform blend of white and blue,' Amlan Lahiri, a spokesman for Kolkata's mayor, told the Wall Street Journal.

The sticky bomb that targeted an Israeli embassy car in Delhi was also used in the triple explosions in Bangkok yesterday, prompting Thai authorities today to probe possible links between the two incidents.

Thailand's National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree was cautious when he said the government has not yet determined if there were any links between the events in Bangkok and the Monday incidents in New Delhi and the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

"We haven't found any links but we are still investigating. We admit there was magnetic component aiming at individuals but the origin of the magnet still has to be investigated," he said.

17:57

Meanwhile, the Israeli diplomat who was injured in the car blast is improving.

Asking the international community to draw a "red line" against Iran's support to acts of terrorism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today accused Tehran of jeopardising world peace.

"Iran is the biggest exporter of terror in the world. Iran's terror operations are now exposed for all to see," Netanyahu said during a Knesset (Israeli parliament) plenum, a day after a botched terror attack in Thailand, which Israel believe was meant to target its ambassador in Bangkok.

"Iran is undermining the world's stability and harms innocent diplomats. World countries must condemn Iran's terror acts and draw a red line. This aggression, if not stopped, will eventually spread," the Israeli Premier warned.

17:51 There's been a fire at a Honduras jail that has killed at least 100, many of them inmates.

Wooing voters in her family pocketborough, Congress' star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi today asked people to elect a Congress government in Uttar Pradesh for rapid development of the state.

Addressing a series of election meetings in Uchchar assembly segment, she lashed out at BSP and SP accusing these parties of doing nothing on the development front. During the SP rule, "goonda elements had a free hand and the common people were harassed", Priyanka said.

During the BSP's regime, central funds for development were misused, she alleged. It is time for the people to look for future of their chidren and vote Congress to power after a gap of 22 years in the state, Priyanka said.

Elections will be held in 10 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including in Mumbai tomorrow where a triangular contest is on cards between theCongress-NCP combine, Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI alliance and the RajThackeray-led MNS.

Elections are being held in Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Nashik, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur municipal corporations. The 10 civic bodies have an electorate of 2.02 crore and will elect 1,244 candidates.

The Pakistan government has named ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg Jalil Abbas Jilani as the country's next foreign secretary ending the guessing game about who would lead the Foreign Service.

Jilani, 57, will replace Salman Bashir, who retires on March 3 and has been posted as high commissioner to India.

He has long been tipped as the next foreign secretary, but government's silence over its choice led to speculations about Bashir's successor.

Incidentally, Jilani is cousin of PM Gilani, long tipped to be foreign secretary. He was expelled from India in 2003 for funding Kashmiri leaders.

16:57

Rahul Gandhi ends his 15-minute extempore speech with a rousing, "If you want UP to stand up, come here. If you want UP to develop, come here. Our government is in Delhi; we will do everything possible if we come to power."

Phase IV of the UP polls is on February 19.

16:53

Rahul Gandhi at the Lucknow rally: "Half my life I have listened to their promises. Go to Andhra and ask the women if they got the NREGA funds. They did, but did you?

Under JNURM, we gave Rs 1000 crore to beautify Lucknow. Ask your CM where that money has gone."

16:51

Rahul thunder lashes Lucknow.

At the rally on right now, the Congress leader says, "See who is working in the fields of Haryana and Punjab -- it is people from UP. Your leader doesn't talk to you. Has Mayawati ever walked these streets? If she doesnt come to your homes how will she know your problems?

"You have taught me more than my foreign education. The state runs on your blood and sweat, yet, these leaders don't learn from you," says Rahul.

Rediff.com'sSaisuresh Sivaswamy reports from a rally addressed by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi in Lucknow.

This is Rahul's first rally in Lucknow. The Gandhi scion says that for a while, the Congress had stopped fighting elections in UP, but is now fighting back after 22 years.

"This fight is for your future. The BJP took Ram's name, but did nothing. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party did nothing. The world is afraid of India's future, but UP is in fact, going backwards," says Rahul.

The government had last month struck an agreement with Norway authorities that the custody of the two children will be handed over to their Kolkata-based paternal uncle.

Three-year-old Abhigyan and one-year-old Aishwarya have been placed under the care of a foster family in Norway. The two were taken away by the Norwegian authorities in May last year after they found their parents - Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya - guilty of "an emotional disconnect" with their children.

Despite the Indian government's intervention, the Norwegian Child Welfare Services is following long procedures in handing over the children to their paternal uncle, Arunabhas Bhattacharya, who will be the formal custodian of the two.

Israeli Ambassador Alon Usphiz will meet External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to discuss the progress in investigations into the sticky bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat two days ago.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said the Minister and Ambassador will discuss during their meeting this evening the issue of the attack on the car of the Israeli official on Aurangazeb Road near Prime Minister's sidence on Monday.

Tensions over Iran rose several notches today following a series of suspected bomb plots against Israeli diplomats in different countries, and ahead of an expected announcement on Tehran's nuclear progress.

Iranian officials have denied any involvement in the alleged plots in Thailand, India and Georgia this week, rejecting Israeli accusations that the Islamic republic was behind the "terrorist" acts.

At the same time, Iran is poised to unveil what it called "achievements" in its controversial nuclear programme.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to announce the "several" unspecified projects today. The two developments added to geopolitical uncertainty in a worsening showdown between Iran and the West.

A nine-member team from Israel embassy has inspected the cars which were damaged in the 'sticky bomb' explosion in which the diplomat, Tal Yehoshua-Koren (40), and three others, including her driver, were injured. The team visited the Special Cell office in south Delhi's Lodhi Colony this afternoon and inspected the car in which the she was travelling.

They also inspected another car which was damaged. Sources said 250 to 300 grams of explosives were used in the bomb that targeted the car.

President Obama came to India in November 2010 hoping to hitch America's recovery to the Asian nation's inexpensive labor and emerging middle-class consumers. Indians talked of a future when millions of their own would be lifted out of deep poverty.

What a difference a year makes. It's not just that India's economic growth has skidded to a halt. A series of key government reforms have stalled while an anticorruption campaign has created uncertainty about what tainted money lies beneath balance sheets. Investors are fleeing.

Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement will now be studied by students of Centre for Study of Corruption of the Sussex University. The university has announced the creation of a new research centre at Sussex entitled the 'Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption' which offers a one-year masters' programme from the 2012-13 academic year.

"The effectiveness of Anna Hazare's high-profile campaign to clean up Indian life is subsequently something that is analysed within the MA programme," the Centre's head Dr Dan Hough said.

Just in: Zakia Jafri will be given copy of the Special Investigations Team probe report in a month, says the Gujarat High Court.

The SIT on Monday opposed sharing with activists its final report on the probe into allegations of CM Narendra Modi's involvement in the 2002 riots, as a court had reserved till Feb 15 its order on their plea seeking access to the crucial document.

During the hearing in the court, the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team opposed the applications by Teesta Setalvad and other activists, saying some of them had no locus standi to be given a copy of the report.

SIT had submitted the report to the court in a sealed cover last week amid speculation that Modi may have got relief in the probe on Zakia Jafri's complaint against the chief minister and others on the 2002 post-Godhra riots. Zakia's husband Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was among the 69 people killed in post-Godhra Gulberg Housing society riots.

Just in: The Supreme Court rejects Essar and Loop's pleas for an interim stay of summons issued by the trial court hearing the 2G case. The SC today issued a notice to the CBI on Essar and Loop's pleas challenging the jurisdiction of a special CBI court to hear the case against them in 2G scam.

"We will quash the proceedings if we come to conclusion that special CBI court has no jurisdiction to hear the case," said the SC bench.

Iran today said it would neither accept nor deny Israeli allegation that Tehran was behind the attack on its mission employee in New Delhi and expressed hope that New Delhi would verify the case and clarify the real position.

Iranian Ambassador to India Mehdi Nabizadeh said, "We hope that India will verify the case to know the real position. Till now, their final reaction has not come. We hope it will come."

Tal Yehoshua (40), wife of a Israeli Defence Attache, who is also a diplomat and working in the mission, was critically injured in the explosion and underwent surgeries at the Primus hospital to remove splinters from her spine and liver. She was among the four persons wounded due the blast.

More on the UP polls: Faisal Patel, son of Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi was yesterday seen on the stage of the Congress partys public meeting in Ankleshwar-Hansot assembly constituency.

Just in: The Gujarat High Court issues a contempt notice to CM Narendra Modi on the issue of compensation to riot victims. The court had ordered compensation to 56 petitioners last year and asked why the riot victims had not been provided for. The victims' shops had been burned in the 2002 Godhra riots.

Last week, the Gujarat HC had ordered the government to fund the repair of nearly 600 religious buildings that were targeted during the riots. Modi's government had fought a PIL that asked the state to underwrite the renovation.

Former president Pervez Musharraf knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the garrison town of Abbottabad and the Pakistani intelligence itself had made the safe house that sheltered him, a former ISI chief has alleged.

In an article for The Daily Beast website, Riedel further quoted Butt as saying that bin Laden's safe house in Abbottabad "was made to order" by Brig Ijaz Shah, a former head of the Intelligence Bureau.

"Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up bin Laden in Abbottabad, ensuring his safety and keeping him hidden from the outside. And Ziauddin says Musharraf knew all about it," Riedel wrote in the article.

However, Butt told the Geo News channel today that he had been misquoted in the article.

US Special Forces killed the al Qaeda chief in a pre-dawn raid on a compound in Abbottabad, located a short distance from the elite Pakistan Military Academy, in May last year. Bin Laden reportedly lived in the walled compound in Abbottabad for five years.

And a story from that puts the veil back on Muslim women... Afghanistan has instructed female TV presenters to stop appearing without a headscarf and to wear less make-up, officials said, raising fears about creepingrestrictions on the fledgling media.

"All the TV networks are in seriousness asked to stop the female presenters from appearing on TV without a veil and with dense make-up," the information and culture ministry said.

"All the female newscasters on Afghan TV channels are also asked to respect Islamic and Afghan values," it added. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai told AFP yesterday that the ministry took the decision after coming under pressure from the Ulema council, the country's highest religious body of Islamic scholars.

Afghan media, essentially non-existent under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, have enjoyed enjoyed considerable freedom, with more than two dozen TV stations springing up in the decade since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Rediff.com'sVicky Nanjappa reports that the Delhi police have finally located the red bike believed to have been used by the bomber (as yet untraceable). Investigators say a "very well-trained" single person on a motorcycle drove up to the Toyota Innova car and attached a device to it while it was waiting at a traffic intersection. The car exploded within seconds, injuring four people, one of them, an Israeli diplomat's wife, seriously..

The bike has been located in an area called Lado Sarai. Based on CCTV footage and eyewitness accounts, the police believe this is the red bike they have been looking for, but the claim is yet to be verified.

The police are still tight lipped about the module involved in the blast and added that only further investigations would reveal the correct picture.

The composition of the bomb is also being examined and preliminary reports show the presence of magnetic pieces and sulphur.

Rediff.com's Sharat Pradhan reports from Amethi, which went to the polls today, in phase three of the UP elections.

Polling began at the Ram Nagar Primary School polling centre this morning at precisely 7 am, but nobody cast their vote. They were waiting for a 72-year-old dhobi, Pancham Lal , who is accorded VIP status on all polling days. It is only after Pancham Lal casts his vote that the rest of Amethi follows. After the dhobi, his wife Chandrakala gets to cast the second vote.

"I have enjoyed this privilege ever since I was entitled to vote many many years ago', Pancham Lal said.

Even Amethi's former prince and now Sultanpur Congress MP, Sanjay Singh, made it a point to give way to the dhobi, the third to cast his vote, followed by his wife Amita Singh.

Amethi remains a prestige issue for the Congress, that has held this seat for decades. Sanjay Gandhi was the first to contest from here in 1975 and 1977, followd by Rajiv Gandhi in 1981.

Soon after Rajiv's death it was his pilot friend Satish Sharma who took the baton from here. Thereafter, Sonia Gandhi got elected from here until she handed over the constituency to Rahul Gandhi in 2002.

Rediff.com'sToral Varia reports that the Mumbai police has issued directives prohibiting the bursting of firecrackers in the city for a month beginning February 17 and ending on March 17 as a preemptive measure post the municipal elections tomorrow.

Firecrackers under 125 decibles are allowed. Those flouting this rule will be prosecuted under Mumbai Police Act.

Notwithstanding the loud and angry Israel official contentions that the three explosions in Bangkok yesterday were part of an Iranian global terror drive, senior Israeli intelligence sources told DEBKA that no connection -- other than circumstantial -- had been uncovered as yet between that incident and the sticky-bomb attacks on Israeli official cars in New Delhi and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi 24 hours earlier.

Read the report. (The website Debka is run by former Israeli intelligence personnel)

Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the gravely wounded wife of an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday, told Israeli media she was fortunate her children were not in the car that was bombed. She was on her way to from the Israeli embassy to pick up her children from school when a bomb ripped through her on Monday.

A little girl struggling with a rare cancer has had her dreams come true for Valentine's Day after meeting her pop idol Justin Bieber -- and 'marrying' him. Avalanna Routh, six, has fought an aggressive and deadly brain cancer ATRT since she was a baby, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

The BBC has promised to curb bad language in its programmes, but it seems that Top Gear is exempt. The popular BBC2 show is broadcast at 8pm '" an hour before the watershed -- and is now widely regarded as family entertainment rather than a car show for 'lads'. But on Sunday night's programme, one guest used the word b******s and the word t***** was sprayed across a car.

20.51 per cent turnout till 11 am in the third phase of the UP polls today.

"Voting began at 7 am for the third phase of assembly elections and 20.51 per cent polling was recorded in the first four hours," Election Commission officials said today.

This phase will decide the fate of three cabinet ministers, a minister of state, 29 sitting MLAs and 14 former ministers. More than 1.75 crore voters are expected to cast their votes to seal the fate of 1,018 candidates in the polling.

A quarter of young children around the world are not getting enough nutrients to grow properly, and 300 die of malnutrition every hour, according to a new report that lays bare the effects of the global food crisis.

The recent attack on an Israeli Embassy car in New Delhi has put the Indian government in a difficult spot -- it needs to maintain relationships with two key allies, Israel and Iran, which are important trading partners, while investigating the attack thoroughly.

Traffic is likely to be affected between 11.30 am and 2 pm. Some metro stations like Khan Market and Karkardooma will be shut down for half an hour.Government officials said they will test the response of concerned officials and residents "a number of simulated situations like collapse of flyovers, crack in metro pillars, and damage to hospitals.

While in Mumbai, you should know that an FIR has been registered against the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray and a leading Marathi news channel for allegedly violating model code of conduct ahead the civic polls.

According to police, the FIR was registered last night after 'Star Majha' news channel aired an interview of Raj Thackeray last evening. "An FIR was registered against Raj Thackeray and 'Star Majha' news channel under IPC section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) as they violated the code of conduct. The complaint was filed by a BMC officer,"DCP Kishore Jadhav said.

Even though the model code of conduct states that the poll campaign should conclude 48 hours before the polling, the channel had aired an interview of the politician, which has been termed as part of the campaign by the BMC officer.

Ten civic bodies in Maharashtra, including the BMC, are going to polls tomorrow

Here's what the government of Thailand has to say on the triple blasts in Bangkok yesterday.

The Defence Minister said they should not be construed as terror attacks, while another official has linked them to global political tensions, even as Israel and Iran traded blames over the incident. Thai police arrested two Iranian men after the dramatic unfoldings in central Bangkok yesterday, when a bomb possibly being assembled by three Iranians went off in a house.

"Yesterday's incident was caused by current international tensions in world politics," National Security Council Secretary General Wichean Potephosree told a news conference.

"It's happening not only in Thailand but also elsewhere,"he said as Israel accused Iran of attacking its targets following attacks in Georgian and Indian capitals.

Defence Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat, meanwhile said in his view, "the bad men were trying to assemble bombs which led to the explosions".

While two Iranians fled the scene, a third named Saeid Moradi, had his legs blown away when he tried to throw a grenade at police that fell on ground and backfired on him. The police took Moradi to hospital while another Iranianwas arrested at the airport as he was trying to flee to Malaysia. The third is still at large.

11:36 Update: The wife of the Israeli military attache may be flown back home; the reason is yet to be ascertained.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have disappointed the world's media -- and his remaining supporters -- by postponing his widely-flagged return to his native country. But he can still draw a respectable crowd in the West, as witnessed by his Feb. 9 appearance before 750 people at Drew University in New Jersey.

Scientists claim to have solved a 130-year-old mystery by revealing that the malaria parasite adopts a banana shape before sexual reproduction to sneak into spleen, a finding which may pave the way for vaccines against the disease which kills 600,000 people each year globally.

A team at the University of Melbourne says its finding about how the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) changes into a banana shape before sexual reproduction may explain how the parasite evades the human immune system, thus providing a potential target for vaccine or drug development.

11:13Painting fangs on a lamb: While on the Israeli car bomb attack, read the editorial on the Hindu: Ever since Monday's near-successful assassination of an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi, India's media have opened a 24x7 barrage of speculation about who carried out the attack...

Did terrorists choose New Delhi to mount a drive-by attack on an Israeli diplomat's wife because India is a relatively soft target? Security experts say it's unlikely that police in any densely populated country would have been able to react quickly enough to stop a motorcyclist from attaching an explosive device to a vehicle, as the attacker did Monday, resulting in a blast that injured the Israeli woman and three others.

The Delhi police is yet to make any headway in Monday's bomb attack on an Israeli embassy car even as an intensive search for the attacker and a red motorcycle used by him were on.

Sources said 250 gm of explosives were used in the bomb that targeted a car of the Israeli embassy in which four persons, including a diplomat, were injured.

The Delhi police is coordinating with Israeli investigators through the country's embassy here and have launched a hunt for the red bike which the attacker used.

Police have also started the process of collecting details of Iranians living in the capital and are awaiting the report of the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL).

CCTV footages have not provide much help even as investigators yesterday recovered magnetic pieces from the device used for exploding the sticky bomb.

Five persons owning red coloured motorcycles were detained yesterday but were let off later while another person who was caught on CCTV in front of Israeli embassy appeared before investigators.

An assailant riding a motorcycle had stuck a bomb on the car in which the Israeli embassy employee Tal Yehoshua-Koren was travelling that exploded injuring her and others on Aurangezeb Road near the Prime Minister's official residence.

Update on the Israeli car blast in the Capital. An Israeli team is on its way to Delhi to help in the investigations, even as the Israeli envoy categorically holds Iran responsible for both the Delhi and Bangkok blasts.

The police are still on the lookout for the red motorcycle which the bomber used in Delhi.

Polling for the third phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections for 56 seats in 10 districts began on Wednesday morning on a dull note with only 8.26 per cent of over 1.75 crore electorate exercising their franchise in the first two hours.

"Voting began at 7 am for the third phase of assembly elections and 8.26 per cent polling was recorded in the first two hours," election commission officials said in Lucknow. Maximum 12 per cent polling was recorded in Naxal-hit Sonbhadra district, whereas minimum 8 per cent each was registered in Bhadoi and Kaushambi, they said.

The most high-profile of these districts is Amethi (rechristened Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar), the parliamentary seat of Congress star campaigner Rahul Gandhi.

A retired PWD Chief Engineer has filed a PIL in the Madras High Court seeking to regulate visitors to the Mullaiperiyar Dam and ensure safety of the reservoir over which Tamil Nadu and Kerala are locked in a dispute.

An opinion was sought to be created among the public to the effect that the dam might give way and result in loss of life and property. Following this rumour, many persons with political affiliations attempted to enter the dam with earth-removal machines and iron tools to break the dam, he alleged.

10:44Largest-ever meet on agriculture begins at Prez home: Good morning. In New Delhi, the largest ever meeting on agriculture starts at Rashtrapati Bhavan with 26 Governors, Lt Governors, five chief ministers, 37 vice chancellors in attendance. President Pratibha Patil invites agriculture planners, experts, farmer representatives and economists from around the country for a historic workshop.

Magnet bomb poses new worry for security agencies (The Times of India)The attack on Tal Yehoshua Korene, wife of Israels defence attache, diverges from the pattern of terror India has suffered so far as it targeted an individual. Read

Polling begins for third phase of UP polls (The Hindu)Fate of three Cabinet Ministers, a Minister of State, 29 sitting MLAs and 14 former Ministers to be decided in this phase. Read

U.S. to wait for probe results on anti-Israel attacks (The Hindu)"We are not going to prejudge this... However, we do note that it comes in the context of a whole series of these kinds of things," a State Department spokesman said while responding to questions on the Israeli allegations that Iran was behind the attacks. Read

Chauhan says he planted Samjhauta bombs (The Hindu)His remarks came as the NIA alleged that Indore-based Chauhan had undergone training in arms and explosives in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Read

Bangkok blasts linked to global political tensions: Thailand (Hindustan Times)A series of blasts in Bangkok on Tuesday that seriously wounded a suspected Iranian bomber are linked to global political tensions, a Thai official said today, after Israel accused Tehran of involvement. Read

2002 riots: Court's verdict on access to SIT report today (Hindustan Times)The court of Metropolitan Magistrate MS Bhatt in Ahmedabad today will decide if the SIT's final report on the probe into allegations of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's involvement in 2002 riots should be made public. Read